2016 – the year in autonomous driving

2016 was a big year for autonomous driving – the biggest until now. A lot of people got aware of the term autonomous driving in 2015. But in 2016 it really got mainstream. Not only the press got aware of the term, even traditional automobile manufacturer used the term within their vocabulary. And some of them have made plans or created a strategy to adopt autonomous driving within their products in the future.

A lot of things happened within the area of autonomous driving in 2016. And I want to mention some of them which I think were important milestones or are just worth it.

January

Faraday Future presented the FFZERO1 at CES. This was the first disappointment in 2016. It was expected that the much hyped startup will present their prototype of a electric car. But they showcased only a Batmobile look-a-like. FF itself said, they want to showcase what is possible with their electrical platform.

The DOT and NHTSA announced, that they will develop new rules and Tools for the new era of self driving vehicles.

GM announced the Chevy Bolt – the first all electric car for 30000$ and with a range of more then 200 miles. GM was faster than Tesla with it´s Model 3 with this announcement.

February

LeEco, the parent company of Faraday Future, and Aston Martin announced, that they will work together to build Aston Martins all Electric vehicle, the RapidE. That means, FF and Aston Martin are almost cousins.

On February 14th a Google-Self-Driving Lexus caused the first accident in Mountain View on El Camino Road when driving in autonomous mode.

March

Tesla announced the Model 3. After only a few days Tesla received more then 400.000 pre-orders. According to Elon Musk the Model 3 will ship at the end of 2017.

General Motors buys Cruise Automation for over 1 billion US$ as Re/code reports.

Baidu applied for a self-driving car license in California and will test their own self-driving car there.

In the swiss town of Sitten two driverless electric powered busses provided by Navya will start a regular shuttle service.